Category: finding poems

cause this is a two-way street, I amdefined by the word I inhabit, but I define the word as well, redefining it, essentially, to fit my etymological purpose

my moral purpose I leave to myself,in a completely other ideologicaldimension

if I can

a poet then is one who writes, paints,composes, manifests, in a word, creates, poems

what is a poem

a poem is where beauty and truth combine to create harmony, coalescence, to the point of one’sadmiration, enchantment, wonder, enlightenment, in incremental steps leading to very transcendence, the feeling thatsomething has moved in your heart

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don’t do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don’t do it. if you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it. if you’re doing it because you want women in your bed, don’t do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don’t do it. if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it, don’t do it. if you’re trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers, don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don’t be dull and boring and pretentious, don’t be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don’t add to that. don’t do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don’t do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don’t do it.

when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you.

what are they doing, though, to our planet,
momentarily I wondered, however impotently, I’ll admit,
having long ago succumbed to proliferating produce misfits,
with the advent of broccolini and, gosh, multicoloured carrots

my salad, with roasted prawns, and an
oil and vinegar vinaigrette, was to die, incidentally,
though not a word from the urchin,
nor from my love, not, I suppose, unnaturally, neither unexpectedly

it’s the 3rd of October already, we’ve
slipped nearly imperceptibly, I’ve found,
into this new month, the days here are
crisp, if not cold, the leaves, not yet
fallen, are nevertheless bristling bright
orange, red, and gold, mustard, crimson,
and deep purple actually, in spotty
patches among the still prevalent greens
holding on determinedly to their extra
share of summer

nothing much more from me about this
otherwise unexceptional month, apart
from the introspection inherent in the
painting above, offered for your
contemplation

Lear has always been a difficult
character to portray, a King becomes a
vagrant, a Jesus figure, “a man / more
sinned against than sinning”, and the
most difficult part an actor must render,
I’ve found, is that of social status

and here we have both extremes, a not
easy transition, nor have I seen but once
a Lear I could believe in

in this alternate production, the reverse
is true, Lear, though in many moments
mighty, is never really a King, nor truly,
I think, a Jesus, though his final breaths
are nothing short of holy

Cordelia speaks her lines well, but
doesn’t breathe them

every other performer is magnificent,
with a special mention for the truly
human Fool, not merely a caricaturehere, but a wise man

also Kent, the vitriolic sisters, Edgar
and his ignominious brother Edmund,
even the several messengers, all of
whom intently and forcefully to a one
live out their roles

the direction is thrillingly manifest in
the solid and detailed work of the cast,
note, for instance, Regan’s laugh, an
inspired directorial touch, when Lear
declares his intention to bequeath
his land according to which of the
daughter’s “doth love Us most”,
relaying in an instant, and at the very
start, her fundamental, and thereafter,
of course, unswerving, unfilial scorn

I’ve never seen that note played
elsewhere so incisively

mostly, however, it’s the poetry of
Shakespeare, which bristles throughout,
like buds in spring in a garden, which ‘ll
especially delight, and have you marvel

Alexander Borodin’s ravishing String
Quartet no 2 in D major, from 1881,
was written only a few years after
Smetana’s 1876 “From My Life“, and
sounds surprisingly similar, the same
number of movements all in the same
order, fast, a dance step, polka or
waltz, then slow, then fast

their second movements are notably
united by their common use of long
bowing of paired notes from the
violins, to establish, irresistibly,
the rhythm of their individual dances

their eccentric, even strident notes,
stretching towards atonality but
remaining this side of the divide,
thus surprisingly welcome, even
captivating

the change of tempo right in the
middle of every movement to
separate and sharpen contrast
between the exposition and the
development, then the whole
thing all over again, all quirks
of the evolution of the
nevertheless stalwart string
quartet structure, as unassailable,
it would appear, as that of the,
also inveterate, sonnet

I could go on

the difference is in the intention,
the appropriation of the Viennese
model to express more culturally
expanded varietals of the original
mode, in these two cases, Czech
and Russian, it’s all in each their
homegrown cadence

and that’s how music speaks if
you lend an ear

think of the European Pinot Noir,
for instance, taking root in other,
foreign soil not being necessarily
any longer inferior, sometimes
even superior, downright even
celebrated, you’ll get, essentially,
the big picture

a friend and I are undertaking our
umpteenth reading of a Shakespeare
play, “Julius Caesar” this time, which
I hadn’t read in an age

in this version, still unparalleled,
Brutus, James Mason, presents hisargument for the assassination of
Caesar, “Hear me for my cause, and
be silent that you may hear…not that
I loved Caesar less but that I loved
Rome more”, he proclaims